Harley Merlin 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris

by Forrest, Bella

Looks like we’re seeing our favorite person again today. My stomach sank. Once was bad enough. Plus, I didn’t actually have a good reason to want to speak with Katherine. I’d have to come up with one pretty quick, or Tess would never let us get away with what had just happened. It’d just shine a big, glaring here-are-your-spies spotlight on the fact that we’d been snooping in Katherine’s private study.

  We headed through more of the same clinical, concrete-and-steel corridors, until we reached a massive metal blast door that stood at the far end of one of the branching hallways. It looked ominous, and if Katherine was lurking behind it, then it would only serve to prove my point.

  “What’s this place?” I asked, continuing to play dumb. I knew exactly what it was. Finch had already told me.

  “It’s the war room,” Tess replied, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I envisioned a massive circular table inside, all lit up in low science-fiction lighting, with world leaders sitting around in sharp suits, debating what to do about the latest nuclear missile crisis. Note to self: Ask Wade to change up our movie choices. Seriously. Next time I saw him, I was picking the film.

  Tess stood in front of a retinal scanner on the right-hand side of the blast door. A moment later, it slid open with a screech of metal on metal, a red light spinning wildly over the top of it. It definitely had a comforting end-of-the-world vibe to it, so at least I could give Katherine points for consistency.

  Inside, the setup wasn’t all that far from what I’d imagined. There was indeed a massive round table, with garish strip-lights framing everyone in a cold, blue glow, and a cube of screens in the center. Embedded into the table itself were touchscreen panels, though nobody seemed to be using them right now. In fact, the cube of screens was blank. No war today, huh?

  Ten magicals sat in the sleek leather chairs nestled around Queen Katherine’s Round Table. Her proverbial knights, hanging on her every evil word. I spotted Naima and Kenneth immediately, but I didn’t recognize the other eight. There was one skinny woman with a long, silver braid down her back. Next to her sat a woman with short, sea-green hair and black eyes that didn’t seem real. In fact, out of the ten magicals, there were only two guys. One was Kenneth, and one was a handsome Korean guy, who shot me a smile as I stood there. I quickly looked away, staring at the ground. Judging by the way they were all nodding and agreeing, they’d come to the end of whatever they were discussing.

  “You all know what is required of you, and you know what will happen if you fail,” Katherine said. “You are dismissed. Don’t disappoint me. You’ve got no idea how hard it is to get bloodstains out of these dresses.”

  It looked like we’d arrived a few minutes too late to the party, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what they’d been talking about. Clearly, Katherine’s minions had been entrusted with some mission in the magical world, and they were about to set off to do her bidding. After a rumble of assent had made its way around the group, the cultists got up to leave, brushing past Finch, Tess, and me on the way out.

  “Sorry you weren’t invited, Tess.” Kenneth stalked toward her, spying his prey. He really couldn’t resist an opportunity to stick it in Tess’s face. “Looks like you’re benched until those delicate little hands of yours heal. You must be so embarrassed. You almost blow your hands right off, and for what? To fail your mission and have to come back with your tail between your legs? Shameful, really.” He tutted like the smug idiot that he was. I glanced at Finch to make sure he wasn’t having any sudden urges to swipe the smirk off Kenneth’s face. He seemed to be fine. Either that, or he was covering his anger well.

  “So, does that make you the substitute?” Tess shot back. “The best player is off the field, so they have to put an inferior player on?”

  “You wish. Even if your hands were healed, you wouldn’t get a look in on this mission. You failed Eris—you can’t be trusted with the big stuff anymore.”

  “I can speak for myself, Kenneth, if it’s all the same to you.” Katherine walked up behind Kenneth, the guy’s face morphing into a mask of horror. “Nice of you to really go in on the hypocrisy, though. I can admire that. I mean, let’s not forget who spent three days cleaning the men’s toilets because he came back empty-handed. That’d be a real shame.”

  Kenneth’s cheeks had turned beet red. It was the ultimate they’re-behind-me-aren’t-they? moment, and Tess was relishing every second. He turned around very slowly, looking up into Katherine’s unimpressed eyes.

  “Now, run along and complete your task, before I decide to put one of the Mazinovs on the mission instead and send you back to the men’s latrines.” She smirked. “It can definitely be arranged, if you need to relearn the value of humility. Plus, I’m sure I can just get someone else to take your place in the rituals, if you can’t behave like a team player. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

  Kenneth shook his head desperately. “No, Eris, I’ll do as you’ve asked. I’ll leave right away.” He bowed so low I thought he might snap himself in half, before scuttling off out of the door, clearly terrified that Katherine might actually change her mind.

  With the war room now empty, Katherine turned her attention to us. “Yes? I presume you’re here to tell me something. Otherwise, this is a colossal waste of all of our time. And you know how much I love that.”

  Tess dipped her head in a bow. “I discovered the Mazinovs in your office, Eris.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa there! Hold up a minute, Crux.” I put my hands up in defense. “You’re making it sound like we didn’t intend to be discovered. Geez, do you always give the newbies such a hard time?” I looked Katherine dead in the eye. “Look, we were bored out of our skulls back at the hut, so we went on a little adventure to try and get a good look at the human experimentation stuff. Pieter was curious about the hybrid aspect, while Earth manipulation is a little more my flavor. Anyway, this island is confusing as all hell, and we ended up in some corridor. Pieter spotted you, but then we lost you, since all of these freaking hallways look the same! I asked some dude with a buzzcut where we could find you, and he pointed us to your office. We were waiting for you to come back. No discovery necessary.”

  My heart was pounding in my chest. It wasn’t easy to lie to Katherine, not when she was glaring right into my soul. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she could hear how hard my heart was beating. I thought about using my reverse Empathy to soften her up, but I didn’t know if she’d be as pliable as O’Halloran had been. That experiment had proven that Shapeshifters could be affected by my reverse ability, but I didn’t want to risk her sensing me if I tried it out on her.

  Katherine smiled. “And what did you want to talk to me about?”

  “We wanted to know when we could get started with the field missions. Like I said, we were getting bored out of our minds. We’ve been in hiding for a year, so we’re pretty eager to stretch our legs, you know?”

  Tess looked pissed, but I didn’t care. There was no way I was getting handed in to Katherine by any of these punks, not while I still had breath in my lungs to ramble off a big ol’ excuse. I glanced at Finch, who hadn’t said anything. If he didn’t start chatting soon, it was going to look pretty suspicious.

  He nodded, catching my glance. “Yeah, we hoped we could convince you to let us do some actual work. We want to be useful to you, Eris.”

  That’s better.

  “Even when you Purge minions from your own Chaos, it’s impossible to get good help.” Katherine sighed, but she didn’t look like she was going to murder us. “I’m guessing Naima didn’t tell you about this place when she returned you to your hut?”

  I shook my head. “Tess showed us the top part of it yesterday, and we saw a bunch of humans all huddled up. So we just thought this was where all the cool stuff happened. That’s why we ended up here—we had nothing else to do, so we fancied a look at what the cult does for fun. We didn’t know it was out of bounds; otherwise, we’d have stayed at the hut and played our millionth game of Go Fish.”


  “The Hexagon itself isn’t out of bounds, but my private study and the Drake Shipton Library are off limits to all members, no exceptions.” She still sounded faintly amused, which I took to be a good sign of our survival. “Although, I’m curious to know how you entered my study. You shouldn’t have been able to.”

  It pained me not to point out the irony in calling this place the Hexagon. As if an extra side somehow made her military base better than the one belonging to the US forces.

  “The door was open when we arrived, so we thought it’d be okay,” I replied. “You know, a drop-in sort of thing if we needed to talk to you. Sorry if we got things confused, but an open door usually means someone’s welcome, right?”

  Katherine sighed. “I’ve thought about adding hexes to keep people out, but it’s so inconvenient. I’d rather just disembowel anyone I catch trying to enter without my permission. Keeps things spicy, you know?”

  “Uh, right,” Finch muttered. “Not us, though? You ought to disembowel whoever left the door open.”

  She chuckled. “You’re quite right. Would make things pretty interesting if it turned out I left the door open, wouldn’t it?”

  I was eager to move the subject away from disembowelment. “The Drake Shipton Library? What’s that? I don’t think we saw it on the way in.”

  She chuckled. “It’s a library, what do you think?”

  “It can’t be just any kind of library if it’s off limits.”

  “Don’t test my patience, Volla. You’re funny, but you’re not that funny. These places are off limits to you, and that’s all I have to say about that. Beyond those areas, you’ve got free rein to wander around as you please. Just don’t piss anyone off and try not to get yourselves killed on your first day.” She smiled coldly. “So, now that I’ve lost ten minutes of my very packed day, will you be all right by yourselves? Or do you need me to hold your hands and drop you off at the sandpit?” Sarcasm dripped from her words.

  “Sorry about that, I’ve got no filter between my mouth and my head.” I tried my best to give her a Volla-style apology. “And sorry for waiting in your office like that. It won’t happen again. We’re still getting used to being around other people again, so our social cues are a little off.”

  “Your lack of filter is very apparent, Volla, but it happens to be one of the things I like about you.” Katherine brushed off my apology and tapped her chin in thought. “Actually, there was something I wanted to talk to the two of you about, too. I had it on my to-do list for one o’clock, but hey, let’s go a little wild with the schedule. It’s already a mess.”

  “What did you want to talk to us about?” Finch chimed in. He’d been relatively quiet throughout this whole exchange, no doubt swallowing his desire to punch his mother in the head or smash her face into one of the high-tech touchscreen panels.

  Katherine grinned. “Ah, he speaks! I thought you’d gone mute for a minute there.” She turned back to me, evidently preferring to talk with a woman. “Now, you mentioned that there was a mole in the cult. I know I said you could keep your secret, given the stakes involved, but I’ve changed my mind in light of this misdemeanor. I want to know who it is. Preferably now. Or I might get a little disembowelly after all.”

  I pulled an apologetic grimace, hoping she was bluffing. “Thing is, we don’t actually know who they are. We just know they’re here, and they’ve been cooperating with the National Council. If we did know who they were, I’d have ratted them out before we went through those trials, on the off chance you’d go easier on us.”

  “Well, well, aren’t you the sneaky snake, Volla Mazinov? You got yourselves in here with that intel, but you don’t actually have anything. If it weren’t so annoying, I’d applaud you for your ingenuity. Reminds me of something I’d do, not that it makes it any better.” She shot me a frosty look. “So, you’re really saying you don’t know who this mole is?”

  “We don’t, Eris. But we know there is one.”

  “Well whoop-de-fricking-do. What am I supposed to do with that, huh? If I never hear the word ‘mole’ again, I’ll be a happy woman,” she bit out, clearly peeved. “Oh well, I’ll find a way to smoke out the traitor soon enough.”

  I was about to give a fake laugh when a cold wave of dread hit me from behind, punching me right in the gut. The kind of dread that only came from someone who felt their life was in danger. The kind of dread that might come from a mole who was in over their head, and who’d just figured out they were on borrowed time. The sensation was so intense and unexpected that I couldn’t keep it out. I resisted the urge to glance over my shoulder as realization dawned. There was only one person in this room who could be sending out a flood of emotion. It wasn’t coming from me, and it wasn’t coming from Finch, and it definitely wasn’t coming from Katherine.

  Tess was the mole. Her emotional guard had dropped, and I was feeling everything. The panic must have set her off.

  Son of a—! I forced a smile onto my face. “So, when can we get out in the field?”

  “When I decide you’re ready,” Katherine replied.

  “Ballpark?”

  She laughed. “Maybe when I get tired of that motormouth of yours. Although, if you annoy me too much, I might just find another use for you. See if any of my members have a silencing spell they want to try out.”

  “Got it. Shut up, Volla. No problem.” I lifted my hands in surrender. “We’ll get out of your hair and leave you to the rest of your very busy day.” I was desperate to talk to Tess about what I’d just felt, but I needed to catch her on her own, when she didn’t have her guard up. If we’d just discovered the mole in the cult, then we’d just found our ally, too.

  “If you would,” Katherine murmured. “You’re currently eating into my personal time, and I’ve got somewhere I need to be. Tess, a word before I go, though I’ll need you to walk and talk if I’m going to get anything done today.”

  We shuffled out of the war room like overenthusiastic worshipers, and Katherine breezed past us. She beckoned for Tess to follow her. The two of them disappeared down one of the nearby corridors, leaving Finch and me alone again. My chance to speak with Tess would have to wait a while, until I could corner her somewhere safe.

  “Why the weird face?” Finch whispered.

  My throat felt tight. “The mole, Finch.”

  Finch arched an eyebrow. “You know something I don’t?”

  “I’m suspicious about something, yeah.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tess. I think Tess might be the mole.”

  He snorted. “Tess? No way. She’s about as brainwashed as it gets. Have you seen how gooey-eyed she gets over Katherine?” He paused, a flicker of doubt moving over his face. “What makes you think she might be the mole?”

  “Call it an informed guess.”

  “Nah, you must be getting your little Empath wires crossed. Tess is the last person it’d be. Honestly, I’d wager twenty dollars on it.” Which is precisely why she’s the perfect mole, dumbass. If I was right, then she had Katherine fooled—hook, line, and sinker.

  In all honesty, I’d known he’d react like this. He thought he knew these people better than I did, which was true on the surface, but emotions rarely lied. I’d felt the cold flood of pure dread and terror coming out of Tess, and I knew what it meant. It wasn’t a coincidence.

  Twenty-Nine

  Harley

  “So, what’s the deal with this Drake Shipton Library?” Finch and I were pretending to look at a couple of the stone titans, and I kept my voice low in case anyone was listening in.

  I was trying to fight off the disappointment of not finding Hester’s spirit in Katherine’s study, reminding myself that we still had five days until All Hallows’ Eve. There were only so many places she could be, and we would find her, one way or another.

  “It’s where she keeps all the scrolls and manuscripts that the Librarian had collected. The Librarian destroyed a bunch of them when Katherine came to snatch her, but the cult g
ot away with some of the greatest hits. The juicy stuff, you know? Like, the rituals, a couple of seriously nasty spells, a bit of Voodoo, and some pretty dangerous magic, too. Among other things. Sacred artifacts, famed Esprits from dead magicals, that sort of jam.”

  “Do you know where it is, inside the Hexagon?”

  Finch shot me a withering look. “Seriously?”

  “What?”

  “What do you take me for? Of course I know where it is. I used to know how to get inside, too. She’s probably changed the proverbial locks on me, but you never know. We could get lucky. In fact, that’s the place I was going to suggest when Tess came in.”

  I frowned. “So we need to find a way in there without getting ourselves killed.”

  “Yep, there are guards stationed there all the time. Should be fun.” He grinned, but I could tell he was still trying to shake off our last encounter with his mother. It didn’t get any easier for me, so I could only imagine what it was like for him.

  “What did Katherine mean about her ‘personal time,’ anyway? You’d think she’d be run off her feet, trying to bring about her new world order. What would she even do with personal time?” I envisaged scented baths and a half hour of restorative yoga, but that didn’t seem like her style. “Is she skinning puppies or something?” That seemed more likely.

  Finch chuckled. “I know exactly where she’s gone.”

  “You do?”

  “Seriously, Sis, you’re starting to give me a complex. I’m not some class dunce you know. I used to run this joint, right at Katherine’s side, back in the day,” he replied. “Everything she knows, I know. And everything she does, I know about.”

  I raised my hands in mock surrender. “No offense intended. So where is she?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I really want to know. Is she a hardcore chess player or something?” I smirked. “Oh, please say it’s knitting or pottery.”

  He grinned. “It’s something a bit more… Katherine. We might need to go there, actually. There’s a key that she used to have, which might help us get into the library without having to deal with the guards.”